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Why the Beach Sucks

27Aug

It is summer time, the sun is blazing, and you are looking for a way to cool off. You break out your swimsuit or swimming trunks and head to the nearest beach with your towel, a picnic basket, a beach ball, and your trusty fishing rod and reel. Visions of beautiful women in skimpy bikinis and flimsy sundresses or men in speedos (whatever your preference) dance around in your head. You imagine a lot of fun and sun is in your near future once you get to those waves. But, you are sadly mistaken about the sandy shorelines. The beach is the place where summer dreams go to die. For every benefit of traversing to the beach there are several reasons not to go. Here are just a few.

Sand

Some people love the feeling of sand between their toes and some do not, but most people enjoy the feel of warm sand under their soles on a breezy summer day. At the beach, you gently push against the soft sand dunes as they hug the bottoms of your feet. You hear the crashing shoreline and feel the light, salty breeze against your face as the cool waves roll over your toes. This how almost everyone remembers their trips to the beach. What they forget is how that gentle sand hugs the inside of their swimsuits, how it clings to every article of clothing that you have, and how a virtually infinite amount of baths will not remove all of it. People love the beach, however, no person in the history of this planet has ever loved the feeling of sand in their underwear. A sandy crotch makes for a very bad day whether that day simply includes traversing with a gritty butt crack or it includes sex with surprise sand grains. Sand gets everywhere, and like an STD, you never know you have it until it is too late.

Crowds

You do not have to be antisocial to hate the big crowds at the beach because everyone goes to the beach at the same time. When you are thinking about throwing that football and spending time with your buddies on a sandy flat, so is every other person within a 40 mile radius of the ocean. When you want to throw on a bikini or speedo and have some barbecue with a quaint ocean view in the background, so does everyone else. You will struggle just to find a space to sit on the holidays. And, when you finally find the perfect spot your reward for all that hard work will be a crack full of sand.

Sunburns

No amount of sunscreen can save you from a painful sunburn on especially sunny days. And, what most people fail to realize is that you can get sunburns on overcast days too. There is no cover on the beach. There is only you, the blazing star that gives us light, heat, and life, and the reflective ground that pushes that heat right back at us from the ground. Fall asleep outside and suffer the consequences.

Animals

The beach is full of dangerous animals trying to kill you when you least expect it. When people think of danger at the beach, their first imaginings are full of toothy sharks circling and attacking them in open water. And, they are right to think of a great white shark attempting to sever a limb after all the cinematic dramatizations of sharks attacking people. However, sharks are not the only deep sea murderers in the water. Depending on the beach, you have to walk for saltwater crocodiles. There are enormous jellyfish like the Portuguese Man-of-War whose tentacles can reach you from 33 feet away or miniscule jellyfish like the irukandji box jellyfish whose venom is so potent that it can paralyze and drown full grown human beings in minutes. Even when swimmers escape the waters, irukandji venom can paralyze the lungs or the heart and kill. Then, there are stonefish who camoflauge themselves as – you guessed it – stones. And, the only feasible way to deduce whether one of these creatures is a fish or a rock is to step on it. The venomous barb on its back gives the definitive answer. There are stingrays and lionfish, all poisonous. There is fire coral which looks beautiful until you touch it, and even a cute little neon-lit octopus can kill you. The ocean is literally teeming with hundreds of different types of creatures who are trying to kill you.

If you are looking for a get-away for the family, then skip the beach. You are promised to be completely covered and fully penetrated by sand by the time you leave for home, the shore will probably be over-crowded, a sunburn will make life miserable for a few days, and the marine life is meticulously trying to stop you and your loved ones from existing. Beach-goers should make the smart move and stay at home. There is nothing but misery at the coast.